Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6—OCTOBER, 1963—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
OKLAHOMA
Lawsuit Against Two School Boards Appears Imminent
OKLAHOMA CITY
FEDERAL COURT laWSUit to
force desegregation of two
schools in southwestern Oklahoma
was reported imminent late in
September.
An Oklahoma City Negro attorney
said he would seek injunction against
the Frederick and Grandfield boards of
education. Negro students were refused
admission for the fall term in white
schools in both communities.
Archibald Hill, Oklahoma City CORE
chapter president, said he would try to
tie the two cases together because a
contractual arrangement appeared to
exist between the Frederick and Grand
field boards.
Some 25 to 50 Negro pupils at Grand
field ride a bus every morning to
classes at Frederick because there is no
Negro school in Grandfield, Hill ex
plained. Frederick is the Tillman Coun
ty seat and Grandfield lies 30 miles
away in the southeast corner of the
county. Both communities are in a cot
ton-growing area just north of the Red
River, which divides Oklahoma from
Texas.
Highs Desegregated
Frederick’s junior and senior high
schools were desegregated voluntarily
in 1962, Prather Brown, superintendent,
told Southern School News. The dis
trict has had athletic desegregation for
seven or eight years, he said.
During the first week in September
a seven-year-old Negro boy tried to
enroll in the second grade of Fred
erick’s all-white Central Elementary
School but was refused, Brown said,
because the boy does not live in the
Central zone.
In the same week a Negro youth
sought enrollment in the all-white
Grandfield High School. Howard Wel-
bum, Grandfield superintendent, said
the enrollment was denied because the
boy was already officially a transfer
student at the all-Negro High School in
Frederick.
The refusal to enroll the Negro sec
ond-grader at Central was upheld at a
Frederick Board of Education meeting
Sept. 9, which Hill attended.
Belvard Lawrence Burns
Admission was refused.
The Negro attorney asked the board
to admit Belvard Lawrence Burns,
seven, son of Mr. and Mrs. Nathan
Burns, to the second grade at Central.
At that point the superintendent said
Central starts at the third grade. He
said the school does not have the first
and second grades.
Hill immediately charged the first and
second grades were dropped because of
the meeting, which he had asked for
with the board.
Earlier Brown had told SSN that two
of Frederick’s four elementary schools
are “neighborhood schools” offering
only the first and second grades. Cen
tral was not one of these and the su
perintendent did not at that time
indicate Central does not have the first
two grades.
Brown said Frederick’s nearly 400
Negro students all live in Ward 3. Those
in grades one through eight attend
Kennedy Elementary School and those
in grades nine through 12 attend Boyd.
The school district is divided into four
wards, the superintendent said, and
transfers are not allowed to keep the
enrollments balanced. He insisted there
North Carolina
(Continued from Page 5)
previously all-white schools in the
Winston-Salem-Forsyth County school
system.
The twins are Harold L. Kennedy III
and Harvey L. Kennedy, sons of Mr.
and Mrs. Harold L. Kennedy, both at
torneys. Both boys attend Brunson
School, desegregated for the first time
this year. A third brother, Mchael, a
first grader, also attends Brunson.
Harold, who was elected class presi
dent, had transferred from Fairview
School.
Harvey, who was named class treas
urer, is a member of a special ad
vanced class at Brunson. His parents
requested his transfer from all-Negro
Diggs School because Brunson is closer
to their home.
The parents are happy over the elec
tions, but added, “We are not interested
in publicity for our children, but are
most concerned about their getting the
best possible education available to
them here.”
In the Colleges
Board Organized
For New Charlotte
College System
A Board of Directors was organized
to control the new Charlotte Commun
ity College System, which was author
ized by the North Carolina General
Assembly. This system consists of the
all-Negro Mecklenburg College and the
desegregated Industrial Education Cen
ter.
The board must find a new name for
the system. Its two campuses are five
miles apart. There may be duplication
of subjects at the two campuses be
cause of the feared reluctance of whites
to study under Negro teachers in the
college unit. There also is a reluctance
of Negroes to attend the Industrial
Education Center.
For the coming school year, both
units will operate as they have in the
past, Dr. Richard Hagemeyer, newly
announced president of the system,
said. Changes are likely to be made
next year, however.
★ ★ ★
The Fayetteville State College,
previously all Negro, enrolled its first
white student Sept. 24. She is Mrs.
Mary R. Pohlmann, the wife of a soldier
stationed at Fort Bragg. She is a senior
studying biology.
★ ★ ★
The Durham Chamber of Commerce
welcomed Dr. Samuel P. Massie, new
president of North Carolina College, a
Negro school, to the city with a special
dinner Sept. 25 at the Jack Tar Hotel.
Mayor Wense Grabarek presented
him a key to the city. Top business
men brought welcomes. Massie pledged
that he will do his best to make North
Carolina College the quality institution
“it must be.”
★ ★ ★
A number of stores in Greensboro
have worked out an agreement to con
duct an experimental training program
for Negro students attending the Agri
cultural and Technical College, Ben
nett College and Dudley High Schools,
it was announced Sept. 18.
The agreement was evolved by the
Rev. Knighton Stanley of the Greens
boro CORE chapter and Armistead W.
Sapp Jr., attorney for the stores in
volved.
This action apparently resulted from
a recent report by the Greensboro Hu
man Relations Commission in behalf of
the Retail Merchants Association. This
report stated that jobs were available
to non-whites, but there were not
enough qualified persons to fill these
positions.
HARVEY
HAROLD
; s no gerrymandering to exclude Ne-
Toes from white schools.
Brown told the SSN that with the
lesegregation of the six upper grades
last year only one Negro student chose
to attend the white school and two en
rolled in the white junior high school.
“They don’t seem to come over,” he
declared.
Frederick has a total enrollment of
1,800. Frederick High School has 270
students and Boyd, 110. The white ele
mentary schools have about 700 or 800
pupils while Kennedy has an enroll
ment of 280, Brown said.
Hill told the Sept. 9 school board
meeting zoning laws are unconstitu
tional and added segregation was out
lawed in 1954. He expressed his belief
any child has a right to go to any
school and should not be barred be
cause of race, creed or color.
The superintendent replied that
school zones have nothing to do with
color. He said Frederick schools have
operated on the zone system for 40
years.
The CORE attorney said Frederick
should set up new boundaries and abide
by the ruling of the court. His next
step, he indicated, would be to file a
suit in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma
City, charging defamation of rights
against the Burns child. He said he may
file a class action, charging discrimina
tion against all Negro children by the
Frederick school board.
On Sept. 28 Hill told the SSN he
probably would file injunction suits
within the next week “unless some
thing happens pretty soon.” He said he
had talked to the people involved again
that day and that he was trying to pre
pare a lawsuit covering both the
Grandfield and Frederick situations.
Seek to Enjoin
He would seek to enjoin the Grand
field board from refusing admission of
Negro students to its schools, and the
Frederick board from allowing the
Grandfield students to come into its
schools, Hill said.
In this manner, he added, he hoped
to attack the “whole system” and upset
the zoning law idea.
“The board of education position,”
Hill explained, “is that it sticks to the
zoning laws to keep balanced enroll
ments. Yet it allows Negroes from out
of the district and out of the city to ride
past the white school to the Negro
school in Frederick.”
Oklahoma Highlights
A federal court suit for admission
of Negro students to two white
schools in southwestern Oklahoma
appeared imminent.
A federal court suit filed against a
Seminole County school district
sought admission of 12 Negroes to a
white elementary school.
The Oklahoma City Board of Edu
cation reported it was swamped with
transfer applications but said few of
the requests were based on race, a
reason now outlawed by a federal
court order.
Desegregation of two additional
white elementary schools and of a
Negro junior high school was re
vealed by Oklahoma City school of
ficials.
The Negro attorney said the effort to
enroll the Bums child in Central was
the culmination of a series of meetings
he held in August with about 15 Negro
families representing some 20 children.
They expressed dissatisfaction with the
Kennedy school, he said. Their list of
grievances included a split session, ab
sence of a cafeteria and lack of refrig
erated drinking water.
Moot Point
The split session is apparently a moot
point now. Supt. Brown said Tillman
County schools, white and Negro, for
years started the fall term early, then
dismissed for the cotton harvest. Grad
ually, as mechanization reduced the de
mand for labor, the cotton vacation was
shortened and this year it was elim
inated altogether.
The superintendent also said a cafe
teria was included in the Boyd school
when it was built 10 years ago. But it
was shut down, he said, because it was
not patronized, even when prices were
cut to 15 cents, including milk.
At the Sept. 9 meeting Mrs. Burns
told the board she didn’t want her child
to attend the Kennedy school because
it is sub-standard. She charged it has
outdoor toilets, no library and no
refrigerated drinking fountains and
added it is overcrowded.
Tony Massad, school board attorney,
said classrooms at Kennedy are no more
crowded than they are at other school;
in Frederick. It was pointed out th^
none of the grade schools has a librae
and there are no refrigerated drin^
ing fountains because school officials do
not want children drinking ice watt.
after playing hard.
Massad said the school board does
not feel the issue discussed was a Ne
gro question or a segregation problem
To Hill’s direct question whether the
board would admit the Bums child to
Central, Massad replied, “If the Bum,
family moves to the Central district”
★ ★ ★
Lawsuit Filed Against
Rural School District
A rural school district in Seminole
County has been named defendant in a
federal court suit for allegedly refus.
ing to enroll 12 Negro students in a
white elementary school.
The suit was brought against the su
perintendent, Bryce D. Hill, and mem
bers of the board of the New Lima
Independent School District in behalf
of Seporia Hill, Redell Jackson and
others.
It charges that Hill, with the board's
support, refused admission to the 12
Negro children when their parents tried
to enroll them at New Lima’s all-white
elementary school Aug. 30.
The case was filed September 12 by
U. Simpson Tate, Wewoka, in U.S. Dis
trict Court at Muskogee. Tate is an
NAACP attorney.
The district has a Negro elementary
school, Lima, in operation with four
teachers and 106 students. New Lima is
a small community located six miles
west of Wewoka on U. S. 270.
Supt. Hill insisted the Negro school
has been maintained because a majority
of the Negro parents have indicated a
desire to keep a separate elementary
school for their children. He pointed
out that the New Lima High School is
desegregated.
Hill said the Lima school burned in
1958 and the board of education con
sidered consolidating the Negro school
with New Lima Elementary at that
time. He said the board found most of
the parents of the Negro children want
ed the Negro school re-built.
The case has been assigned to Dis
trict Judge Fred Daugherty of Okla
homa City.
Schoolmen
Board Swamped By Transfer Requests
The Oklahoma City Board of Educa
tion has been swamped with applica
tions for attendance-district transfers
but racial reasons have been a “very
minor” factor, a spokesman reported.
The Oklahoma City school system
operates under a new special-transfer
plan ordered for 1963-64 by U. S. Dis
trict Judge Luther Bohanon. He had
held on July 11 that the old plan was
discriminatory to Negroes because it
permitted transfers based on race.
School officials reported in Septem
ber that several hundred applications
for transfers had been granted and sev
eral hundred others denied. They esti
mated approvals and denials were
running about 50-50.
Under the new plan approved by the
court no special transfers from one
school to another can be given on the
basis of race. This means students no
longer can be transferred out of a school
in which their race is in the minority to
one where it is the majority.
Outside City
Dr. Larry Hayes, in charge of trans
fers for the board of education, said
some parents have transferred their
children from Longfellow, a desegre
gated city elementary school, to Mill-
wood School, outside the city school
system. It has no Negro students al
though it has been biracial in the past.
Changing from one district to another
is called a legal transfer and it must be
approved by the county superintendent
of schools. Raymond Harvey, the county
superintendent, and Louis C. Ray,
Millwood principal, said 40 pupils
transferred from the Oklahoma City
district to Millwood but no figures were
available on the attendance area from
which they came. Harvey estimated
other areas have transferred more stu
dents to Millwood than has Longfellow.
The attendance area of four other
Oklahoma City elementary schools—
Edison, Taylor, University Heights and
North Highland—also border on Mill-
wood and all have white student bodies.
In addition, junior high students can
transfer from the city school district to
Millwood because it operates grades
through the ninth.
Students passing from the sixth grade
at Longfellow normally go to the bi
racial Northeast Junior-Senior High
School. Those from Millwood can choose
among Northeast, Marshall, Harding,
Edmond and other high schools.
Dr. Hayes said racial issues are in
volved in only a small percentage of
the transfer requests. Most have to do
with transportation and other con
venience factors for the patrons, he
said.
The court-approved transfer plan re
quires students to attend the school in
their own geographic attendance areas.
Exceptions are made only to provide a
student a course of study not available
in his attendance area, to permit a child
to attend a school already being at
tended by a brother or sister or to per
mit a child to remain in a school
although the family moves to another
attendance area.
¥ ¥ *
All-Negro Junior High
School Desegregated
The desegregation of two white ele
mentary schools and of a previously all-
Negro junior high school were revealed
by the Oklahoma City Board of Educa
tion in September.
Dewey and Washington became the
13th and 14th elementary schools with
biracial student bodies, either now or
in the past.
Three white students—a boy and a
girl in the seventh grade and a boy in
the eighth grade—desegregated Moon
Junior High.
A spokesman for the principal’s office
said the school was actually desegre
gated last year when a white eighth-
grader attended classes there for abou
two months before her parents move
out of the district. Otherwise, its
rollment has been all Negro since
school was founded.
Fourth School
Moon is the fourth secondary k'e
school in Oklahoma City to be de->_ e £ r ,
gated. The others are Central, R° r
east and Star-Spencer.
The principal of Dewej
desegregated by a girl in
and a boy in the fifth grade. The ^
with an enrollment of 434, is loca
the northeast section of Oklahoma^
where three other elementary s #
have been desegregated in the 1
years- . , gtu-
Washington took on a biracia ^
dent body when its attendance ^
was merged—shortly before ^
term started—with that of is
Park Elementary School. The t j 0 n
located in a Negro residents
just west of the downtown d is
For the past two years it has be ^ ^
racial because of the presenc ^ jp
students from throughout t e _ the
special education classes. Th is t j re ly t0
school has been turned °'’ er e g~ peg 11 '
special education work and the to
lar students, all Negro, trans _,j n gto n 5
Washington. They bring " a
total enrollment to 270.
said it *•»
kindergart* 1
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words “young Conun ^ s
lunist front” were gat**
ear where a Negro des ^ f o&'
spoke at the Universi y ^
incident occurred the ^0»r*
5 during a speech by
at the Oklahoma »
speech, heard by 1110 ^
s, including at leas gtxld^
members, appealed tO ft*